Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol

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Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, or LRRP (pronounced and sometimes spelled "LuRP"), were special six-man teams of primarily Rangers utilized in the Vietnam War on highly dangerous special operations missions deep into enemy territory.

In the mid to late 1960s, the U.S. Army Special Forces trained these units for the purpose of locating enemy units in guerrilla warfare, as well as in artillery spotting, intelligence gathering, forward air control, and bomb damage assessment. Companies were organized into two platoons, each with eight six-man patrols. Their training was notoriously rigorous.

At the beginning of 1969, the LuRPs were folded into a reactivated Army Ranger unit.

They operated on reconnaissance and combat patrols, either obtaining highly vital intelligence, or performing highly dangerous raids and ambushes. The tactical employment of LRRPs was later evaluated to be generally used far too dangerously by strategic commanders, who were pleased by the extraordinary kill ratios for LRRPs teams (sometimes reported as high as 400 enemy troops for every LRRP killed). Their use was reconsidered and restructured into modern day Long Range Surveillance (LRS) units.

Writes one commentator: "During the course of the war LuRPs conducted around 23,000 long-range patrols, of this amount two-thirds resulted in enemy sightings. LuRPs also accounted for approximately 10,000 enemy KIA through ambushes, sniping, air strikes, and calling in artillery fire." [1]

Other units known as LRRPs can be found in some foreign militaries, such as those supposedly employed by Sri Lanka's Directorate of Military intelligence. They have been very successful in covert operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northern and eastern provinces in Sri Lanka. They were so successful that LTTE terrorist leaders were forced to come out of their jungle-bunkers after the 2002 ceasefire. In Finland, the long-range reconnaissance patrols (kaukopartio) were especially notable in the Second World War; President of Finland Mauno Koivisto served in Lauri Törni's (Larry Thorne) unit.